This Text purports to be a true and correct account of certain events on Untunchilamon. However, as complete Verification has proved impossible, scholars are advised to treat it with caution. To accept it as the whole truth (or as nothing but the truth) would be rash, to say the least.
I myself have been to Untunchilamon and to Injilta-prajura in days gone by, during the rule of the late Wazir Sin. I then met some of those who feature in this Text, notably Justina Thrug (later to be the Empress Justina), Aquitaine Varazchavardan (then chief adviser to Wazir Sin), and Nixorjapretzel Rat (then an eager young scholar who earned himself some coppers by serving as my interpreter-guide).
I also saw the magical fountains of dikle and shlug which spring from the island of Jod, where I was shown the Analytical Engine by Ivan Pokrov. His explanations of the Engine were most unsatisfactory; I remain convinced that this conglomeration of titanium cogs is incapable of cognition, and that Pokrov is a fraud. The Hermit Crab I also saw, but all it said was ‘Go away.’ As I possess a parrot with a vocabulary far more extensive, I remain unimpressed.
But I swear by my fingernails that I never heard any mention of this maze of sewer-works said to exist Downstairs, or of this dorgi and this Shabble, or of this mythical ‘Golden Gulag’ which the Originator of this Text has conjured with. Such surely belong to the realm of fantasy. In this Translation, we have not endeavoured to dignify the Fantastic by scholarship, which could in any case say only that the cryptic is cryptic; hence references to such semantic entities as ‘zulzers’, ‘ionising radiation’.
‘transponder’, ‘vocal identities’ and ‘spectral analysis’ remain unglossed.
It is for the Originator to say what True Meaning these semantic entities have (if any). However, for reasons which need no elaboration (we are hardly dealing with ancient history, are we?!) the Originator is not likely to be available for Interrogation. Ever.
It is with every confidence that I repeat the original conclusions of the Report I made to the Battle Council on my return from my Survey of Untunchilamon: there is nothing and nobody on this sunburnt little island capable of materially assisting us in the Conquest.
Given under my hand on this the morning of the twelfth day of the fifth month of the 15,436,794th year of Din Civil.
Drax Lira.
Redactor Major